The Guardian (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I have started to write this down many times in the past twenty years-ever since I turned seventy, and felt that every day of life..." (more)
Key Phrases: San Francisco, Reverend Bower, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Haldeman (The Forever War) reworks classic SF themes in this odd and unsatisfying pastiche of travel narrative, alternate history, American Indian lore and adventure story. In 1879, Rosa Tolliver, a college-educated blueblood, marries a wealthy man who turns out to be a brute. She flees her Philadelphia mansion with her 14-year-old son, Daniel, and the two of them make their way to Dodge City, Kans. Rosa retrospectively describes the trip in incredible detail: the modes of transportation they took; the people they met; the books she read. With each carefully placed detail, Rosa weaves the tapestry of her life, and among the threads, she hints at a destiny: something extraordinary happens to her, and each book she reads, each decision she makes, in retrospect has something to do with this destiny. Her stay in Dodge City lasts only four years, and she and Daniel flee again when a Pinkerton detective tracks them down. Another well-documented trip-this time to Alaska-follows. Toward the end, an Indian shaman, Raven, shows her alien wonders and a vision of a future Earth. The minute detail and foreshadowing are wearying, and Rosa's destiny ultimately falls flat: it's a tale of courage told by a courageous but unimaginative woman.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fleeing an abusive marriage, Rosa Coleman and her teenage son, Daniel, begin a cross-country trek in the waning years of the 19th century. Their journey leads them to Alaska, where Rosa experiences a mystical encounter with a raven that changes her life forever. The author of The Forever War delivers an elegant parable of many worlds and multiple possibilities while telling the tale of a courageous woman whose life spans most of a century and whose hopes and dreams cross the barrier between worlds. A good choice for libraries where Haldeman enjoys a following.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1st edition (December 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441009778
• ISBN-13: 978-0441009770
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,306,329 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good historical fiction; a bit thin on the science fiction, December 30, 2002

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It is difficult to imagine that the author of this also wrote the Forever War. Though it has been over 25 years between the two. Nonetheless, the latter is exemplary hard military science fiction. But what about this book?

Its descriptions, told in the first person, of the late nineteenth century in the United States, are wonderfully done. They span the Civil War to the Alaskan gold rush. Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. But unlike say Jack Finney's "Time and Again", there is little intrigue here. Rather, we see society through the eyes of a single woman trying to raise her son. The constraints and norms it imposes on her seem so confining to us, but she describes them matter-of-factly, which deliberately adds to the dissonance that the author intends between the subject's experiences and ours.

Read this if you want some understanding of what it meant to be female and not wealthy or powerful in that United States.

Ah, but what about the SCIENCE fiction? A little sparse. Such as it is appears only in the last quarter or less of the book. The first three quarters is straight historical fiction, though within which, the subject keeps alluding to this mysterious thing. Slightly annoying. When it finally does happen, it is rather hokey. Bloody risible, actually. I found it unconvincing and simply not up to the author's standards in his earlier books.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interestingly-offbeat sort-of-SF novel, March 13, 2003

By	Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This interestingly-offbeat sort-of-SF novel starts off as a late 19th century memoir, 'as written by' the protag-lady circa 1952. Rosa Coleman moves to Kansas to escape an abusive husband, then moves on to Alaska when the brute find out she's in Dodge City -- a town Haldeman picked, no doubt, with malice aforethought [note 1]. The 'memoir' is well-researched and pretty good, but has no special sfnal frisson until Rosa is led on a galactic fantasy-tour by an Alien Guardian disguised as a Tlingit Raven shaman... [note 2]

It wouldn't be fair to reveal how Raven got involved, so let's just say that many-worlds is the law in this universe, with interesting consequences. Haldeman's writing is as good as ever (a relief after Forever Peace), and the galactic-tourist scenes with Raven and Rosa are as thrilling and strange as the encounters with the weird continuity-guardian in The Hemingway Hoax [note 3] -- high praise indeed.

The spirit-guardian out-of-body trip leader was a pretty common conceit in 19th century proto-sf, and Haldeman specifically identifies a Flammarion novel [note 4] as a parallel work to his. A somewhat similar book, that ordinary readers may have actually read, is Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus. Personally, I would have preferred more galaxy-touring and less history in Guardian, but I wasn't disappointed with the book at hand. And, at 231 pages, no great time-committment is required. Recommended.

I glanced through the online reviews for Guardian. About a third wanted more history and less SF. Another third wanted more SF, and the rest were happy with Haldeman's chosen mix. Um, Publisher's Review panned it as "odd and unsatisfying". So YMMV.
____________
Note 1). -- town of a thousand bad cliches. Yup, she got the hell out of Dodge...
Haldeman used to live nearby, in Oklahoma (and grew up in Alaska).

Note 2). Raven has roughly the same position in Northwest Coast mythology as Coyote does in the American Southwest, or Loki in Nordic myths.

Note 3). They also make more sense than those HH scenes.

Note 4). You won't be surprised to hear that John Clute has a copy of the Flammarion in his personal library. Ah, it's Lumen, newly-translated by one B. Stableford...

"Haldeman must be commended for his meticulous recreation of period America."
--Paul di Filippo, **CAUTION -- SPOILERS**
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue296/books.html

Review copyright 2002 Peter D. Tillman

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book but not typical Haldeman, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

It took a little bit for me to adjust to this book. After all, we like to type cast our authors and we don't expect them to change genres. Of course Haldeman has been peaking into new genres for a while (Hemmingway Hoax and Buying Time come to mind) so I've come to expect new things in each of his novels. However this is a pretty big departure for him. What is it? Well basically it's a really good turn of the century adventure/drama though Haldeman does dabble his toe into the sci-fi waters a bit at the end.

In short this is a novel about a woman's journey with her son across late 1800s America as she flees an abusive husband. That physical journey mirrors here spiritual development as a person, which builds to the surprising twist at the end of the novel that makes it science fiction. So yes, it's a great book, but it is definitely not hard science fiction.